Conspiracy Theory, But Maybe True

What if I told you the New York Knicks had a team meeting last week.  

In that meeting, GM Donnie Walsh, Owner James Dolan, head coach Mike D'Antoni and the powers that be with the Knicks sat around a table at Madison Square Garden and came up with an ingenious plan:  make sure that when Kobe and LeBron come to town, they have record setting games.  Play less defense, let them light up the scoreboard, and make them feel like the Garden is magical.

Let them be showered with praise by the Garden crowd.  Let them be the top story on SportsCenter for a night.  Let their performances be the talk of the town for a while.

That way, when both become free agents in the infamous summer of 2010, both will have fond memories of playing in New York.

It would certainly make it easier to entice them to join the Knicks then, wouldn't it?  

They can just look back at their all-world performances from the winter of 2009, on back-to-back games at the Garden.  Kobe pours in 61, LeBron goes for a triple-double with 52 points.  Ah, how sweet it would be to play 41 games a year in that building.  

The Knicks have already made it clear that they'll be contenders for top talent when that big summer comes around.  They've already made some moves to get them well under the cap so they can take on a couple max contracts.  And everyone knows this year the Knicks aren't going anywhere, barring an unforeseen run to the eighth seed in the East and a first round playoff defeat.  

The fans know that everyone in Manhattan is gearing up for that big summer, so they have already accepted the team will stink the next couple years.  They're all looking ahead to that summer of 2010, and are expecting a top flight free agent to be wearing orange and blue come the fall of that year.

So what better time than now to plant the seed in the players' minds?  It's not like you have to convince Mike D'Antoni to have his team play lackluster defense.

It was probably an easy sell in that meeting with his superiors, because relaxing on defense for a couple nights could mean Kobe and LeBron in a year and a half.

Why Is Mike D'Antoni Considered Such a Good Coach?

Am I missing something here?

Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni has never lead a team to the NBA Finals.  His system encourages a lack of defense.  While he has proven that he can win regular season games if given the right pieces, his teams can never turn the corner against teams that pay attention on both sides of the floor.

So why is he so desirable?

Here in Chicago, many people have been talking about whether Vinny Del Negro has taken so much flack because the Bulls could have had Mike D'Antoni or Doug Collins.  Collins hiring was mostly a story blown out of proportion, as he was never really coming here.  But D'Antoni on the other hand was the man the Bulls seemed to covet.  They didn't get him, as the Knicks swooped him up, and the media praised the Knicks for making the move to get him.

Everyone here seems disappointed the Bulls didn't get D'Antoni, believing that had he manned the Bulls bench Chicago wouldn't be 21-28 and in the 11th spot in the Eastern Conference.  The funny thing about that notion is that D'Antoni's Knicks are just one game better in the conference standings than the Bulls are.  At 21-26, New York is in the East's 10th seed.

The national media talks about D'Antoni like he's an innovator, or someone with a great system.  All I see is a man who runs a free for all offense with undersized players who can't get a team to the NBA Finals.  Is that so impressive to you?

After all, it was against D'Antoni's Knicks that Kobe Bryant dropped 61 points on a couple of nights ago.  It was a Madison Square Garden record, but the clinic of bad Knick defense was almost as impressive as Bryant's scoring.

Tonight LeBron James and the Cavaliers visit the Garden, and the question is how many points the King will drop on the woeful Knicks.  When asked about it, Knicks foward Al Harrington told the media that you can't really stop him and he'll do what he does.  D'Antoni said he's more concerned with fast break scoring than stopping LeBron.  Why?  Why isn't he, like other coaches, concerned with trying to stop him, or at least slowing him down?  Granted, the man is going to get his points, but why not just pretend that at least one of his goals is to limit his impact on the game?

He just doesn't get it.  And neither does the media, for anointing him as one of the NBA's good coaches.